On Monday, a jury in the trial of a 49-year-old man named Danny Hembree watched a taped confession of Hembree saying he committed murder over interracial dating. Hembree, who is being tried in York County, South Carolina, is accused of killing 17-year-old Heather Catterton in 2009, a crime he told police he committed after he gave crack to Catterton in exchange for sex. Yet despite the fact that he had sex with her after giving her drugs, Hembree says he killed Catterton to keep her from having sex with Black men in order to afford crack. “I just released her from that,” he said in the video. “I wasn’t mad or nothing. She was just better off.”

MURDER VICTIM. STARVED, UNLOVED AND BEATEN TO DEATH. ON JANUARY 11th., 2006, 7 YEAR OLD, NIXZMARY BROWN, WAS MURDERED BY HER STEPFATHER, CESAR RODRIGUEZ, FOR TAKING A STRAWBERRY JELLO PUDDING SNACK FROM HER FAMILY'S FRIDGE AND OVER A BROKEN COMPUTER PRINTER.

: http://bit.ly/rzvYuw via @AddThisFamilies and young children kettled by TSG officersHundreds of peaceful demonstrators many of whom have personally lost a loved one in custody found themselves surrounded by streams of special Territorial Support Group (TSG) officers on Saturday’s annual march against deaths in custody.
Parents some with babies and young children, whose lives have been touched by the issue of deaths in custody were caught up in the fracas.
‘The disregard for so many vulnerable people in the police’s treatment of those protesting has done nothing but reinforce the perception that the community are not safe at the hands of those who are paid to protect us,’ organisers of Saturday’s protest told Black Mental Health UK.
‘To see so many officers swoop down on such a small group of peaceful protestors with such military precision in what seemed like a matter of seconds turns one heart cold.
From the outset officers had seen that there were many families who had young children with prams among this group, as well as pensioners with walking sticks so it beggars belief to see them behave in such a way,’ an unamed protestor who lost their best friend in police custody just 12 months ago told BMH UK.Pensioner dragged across Whitehall
The arrest of one peaceful protestor who a team of TSG officers just pulled out from the assembly, but was released hours later without charge, is an indication of the intimidation protestors faced on the day.
During the terrifying incident protestors, saw pensioner and mother of Ricky Bishop Being dragged across the floor at Whitehall by uniformed officers.
This incident which has left many in shaken and in a state of shock has again raised questions over the way the UK’s African Caribbean communities are policed.
The heavy handed approach used against the peaceful assembly has left many with the perception that this incident was meant to inflame rather than diffuse this very sensitive issue.
‘Knowing that the majority of people gathered at this protest have lost loved ones at the hands of the police makes the way people at this peaceful assembly were treated today even more reprehensible,’ organisers of the march the United Friends and Families Campaign said.Striking terror into the heart of peacful protestors‘When people are calling for reform of the police and other institutions and then to see waves of officers descending upon you without warning and for what appears to be no apparent reason, not strikes terror into your heart, but also sends out a message that the state is trying to silence the voices speaking out against these injustices,’ a member of the Saturday’s protest told BMH UK.
Commentators who were at this event say that the heavy handed approach applied to the gathering of grieving families, including relatives of Mark Duggan and Demetre Fraser who only weeks earlier have had to bury their loved ones who died after contact with the police is an indication of a very dangerous element that was allowed to determine the way the peaceful protestors are treated when speaking out against the injustices of the state.Attempt to slience by intimidation?Many left Saturday’s march to end deaths in custody, traumatised after TSG kettling of families and young children who had gathered for the peaceful protest on Saturday.
‘Never in one’s wildest dreams does one expect to see oneself surrounded by rows of so many menacing looking officers, so there is no way of escape, when you are completely innocent of any crime.
The level of intimidation this created coupled with the knowledge of the deaths that have occurred at the hands of the police, in this year alone send out a painful and disturbing message, not only about what policing has now become in the UK, but also the state of civil liberties of a nation previously viewed as a bastion of human rights and civil liberties,’ another protestor said.
‘Our treatment, while traumatic and completely unjust, has clarified even more why we must continue to campaign against deaths in custody and also police brutality. Saturdays incident has made it clear that there is a need to continue this struggle,’ a member of the Justice for Sean Rigg Campaign told BMH UK.
Organiser of Saturday’s 13th UFFC annual march against deaths in custody have indicated that they plan to make an official complaint about how this incident handled, raising particular concern over the way the presence of so many TSO officers inflamed what, for the past 12 years has been always been nothing more than a peaceful protest calling for an end to deaths in custody.Watch treatment of peaceful protestor online here.

On the Sunday edition of the Alex Jones Show, Alex takes a look at the past week and the one ahead. He covers the latest news stories on the economy and political developments around the world and takes listener calls.http://www.infowars.com/http://www.prisonplanet.tv/

P.O. Kata-Ante Taylor snatched Aiyana’s body from home despite her family’s pleas; he previously executed teen in 2008, not charged in either caseFederalist Society member WCCC Judge Timothy Kenny was “one-man grand juror” for Weekly, A&E photographerWCCC Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway, married to a law enforcement officer, is to preside over their trialsBy Diane BukowskiOct. 21, 2011

Killer kop Kata-Ante Taylor

DETROIT – Killer cop Kata-Ante Taylor was the officer who snatched Aiyana Stanley-Jones away from her family after she was shot in the head by Detroit cop Joseph Weekly May 16, 2010. Taylor ran the child out of her home “like a rag doll,” in the words of Attorney Geoffrey Fieger, thus depriving Aiyana in the last moments of her conscious life from being held by family members who loved her.
Attorney Jonathan Marko of the law firm of Fieger, Fieger, Kenney and Giroux, P.C.. who represents Aiyana’s parents in a civil lawsuit against Weekly, provided this information to VOD. He said he has taken depositions of several of the other officers involved in the raid, but cannot release any other details at this point because the process is still ongoing.

Artrell Dickerson, 18 at time of death

Taylor and his partner Aubrey Wade shot 18-year-old Artrell Dickerson to death as he ran from them after a friend’s funeral at the Cantrell Funeral Home on Mack in Detroit, in 2008. (Click on http://michigancitizen.com/police-executed-teen-at-funeral-say-witnesses-p4173-1.htm to read article by this reporter.) No charges were ever brought against them, despite the fact that eyewitnesses said the cops shot the teen in the back as he lay on the ground, already wounded.
“One officer stood over him and executed him,” a relative of the family of 24-year-old Dontell Martin, who was being buried that day, said at the time. “I saw this because I was on the street corner watching. There was no gun nowhere near him. His hands were visible, he was face down, and the officer shot three times. He executed that boy. He didn’t have to do him like that. All he had to do was put handcuffs on him.”Worthy’s treatment of killer kops, Aiyana’s dad, differs drastically

Joseph Weekly, Aiyana Jones, depiction of killing after second autopsy

This new revelation starkly illustrates the disparity between Worthy’s treatment of Aiyana’s father and that of killer cops Weekly, Taylor and the police command involved.
She directly brought first-degree murder charges against Jones in the killing of Je’rean Blake May 14, for “aiding and abetting” defendant Chauncey Owens, not for shooting Blake. But she brought no “aiding and abetting” charges against Taylor or other Detroit police involved in Aiyana’s death.

“Are they going to charge the cops that threw the flash bomb and the ones that tried to cover it up?” Aiyana’s grandmother Mertilla Jones asked Oct. 5 after her son was arraigned.
Ducking police criticism which has come anyway, Worthy said she used a “one-man grand jury” to bring only involuntary manslaughter and reckless use of a firearm charges against Weekly, the actual shooter. Allison Howard, a photographer with A&E’s “The First 48,” faces perjury and obstruction of justice charges. She is allegedly the only person on the TV show’s crew who had enough compassion for the family to show the video to Attorney Fieger.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy

Weekly was released on a $100,000 personal bond, Howard on a 10 percent $50,000 cash bond, while Jones was remanded to jail without bond.
Weekly and Howard will not have a preliminary exam in 36th District Court under the grand jury proceeding, but will first appear before Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway Friday, Nov. 11 for a “calendar conference.”
Jones’ preliminary exam is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 18. He will be represented in his criminal case by Fieger’s firm, which asked for time for discovery before the exam.
Worthy claimed that under state law she cannot comment on the alleged “grand jury” proceedings which resulted in charges against Weekly and Howard.Federalist Society member WCCC Judge Timothy Kenny was “one-man grand juror”

WCCC Judge Timothy Kenny, "one-man grand juror"

However, a review of the court files for the two shows that Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Timothy Kenny, who is presiding judge of the Criminal Division, brought the “grand jury indictment” Oct. 4. There is a separate case file for the “grand jury” proceedings, #11-501-GJ, but Kenny told VOD that the file is not open for public review.
Kenny is a member of the Federalist Society, “a well established network of right-wing lawyers, politicians, pundits, and judges [who] advocate a rollback of civil rights measures, reproductive choice, labor and employment regulations, and environmental protections,” according to “Right Wing Watch.”
Howard’s indictment for perjury says that on May 21, 2010, she “testified that she did not show third parties the video recording, and/or that she did not provide third parties with copies of the said video recording,” and that that “slowed the investigation.”

Allison Howard at arraignment

It further states that she “committed the crime of obstruction of justice by providing false testimony under oath at an Investigative Subpoena requiring redirection and expenditure of law enforcement resources to uncover the falsity of the testimony and the truth of the underlying matter.”
Marko said a video he alluded to in the civil proceedings which is in the Fieger firm’s possession is not the A&E video, but another murky film that was shot from a distance away.

What does “The First 48″ lead to? Former First 48 Detroit cop Ed Williams shot and killed himself and wife Patricia

Worthy’s media representative, Assistant Prosecutor Maria Miller, said she could not comment on the date testimony was taken by the “grand juror.” Worthy had announced shortly after Aiyana’s killing that she was turning the investigation over to the Michigan State Police. It is thus unclear WHO took her allegedly perjured testimony May 21, 2010.
During the civil suit, it was “The First 48” TV series and its producer Kirkstall Rd. Enterprises of New York who refused to provide their videotapes of the Jones homes raid. However, no corporate representatives have been charged with “obstruction of justice.” It is unknown whether the A&E tape is in the prosecutor’s possession.

Abbe Raven, CEO of A&E: why isn't she charged for "wantonly" causing Aiyana's murder for the sake of profit?

Weekly’s indictment for involuntary manslaughter and reckless use of a firearm says he “did because of carelessness, recklessness, or negligence but not willfully or wantonly cause or allow a certain firearm under his/her immediate control, to wit, a 9 mm. submachine gun, to be discharged so as to kill another person.”
The phrasing leaves open the opportunity for his defense to claim, as have city attorneys in the civil suit, that Mertilla Jones caused the gun to go off by having contact with Weekly, a charge she has vehemently denied.Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway, married to cop, to preside over Weekly trial

Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway with husband DeWayne Hayes

Whether Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway was picked by blind draw to preside over Weekly’s and Howard’s trials is another matter open to question.
According to her official biography, “Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway is married to Rev. DeWayne R. Hayes, Wayne County Deputy Sheriff and Founder of The DeWayne R. Hayes Law Enforcement Officers and Youths Support Foundation.
The State of Michigan “business entity” site listed the foundation is listed as a non-profit corporation created first in 2008 and dissolved, then re-created in 2009. There are however no tax returns or other financial statements available for it on guidestar.org, which receives documents for non-profits from the IRS.
Gray Hathaway is divorced for WCCC Judge Michael Hathaway but has maintained the well-known Hathaway name, likely for electoral purposes.

Hathaway presided over the trial of Jason Gibson in March for the killing of police officer Brian Huff in May, 2010, and the wounding of three other cops. The improbable scenario presented at that trial was that Gibson shot Huff in the living room of what many believed to be a drug house operated by the police.
Cops testified he then jumped out on the front porch, gun blazing, and shot three other cops, among dozens who were aiming their guns at him. Mysteriously, Gibson ended up with only one bullet in his buttock, rather than shot dozens of times as normally would have been the case.
Hathaway facilitated the guilty verdict by allowing the testimony of police officers involved in two prior arrests of Gibson, in 2007 and 2009, over the strenuous objections of his attorney.
Gibson had never even been tried and convicted in the second case. VOD interviewed eyewitnesses to the second arrest who completely contradicted the cops’ testimony. (Click on http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/03/22/%e2%80%9cfree-jay-bird-gibson-trial-continues-mar-15-18-wrap-up-due-mar-22/ .)
The City of Detroit has fought Aiyana’s parents’ lawsuit every inch of the way. Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Daphne Means Curtis shot down Weekley’s request to seal all materials related to the suit Sept. 1. (http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/09/02/judge-shoots-down-killer-cop%e2%80%99s-request-to-seal-file/)
On Oct. 11, she denied Weekley’s motion to stay proceedings pending the outcome of criminal charges against both himself and Aiyana’s father Charles Jones. (http://detnews.com/article/20111011/METRO01/110110393/Judge-won’t-halt-research-into-wrongful-death-lawsuit-in-Aiyana-case#ixzz1aUzYZMfD.)
Means-Curtis sealed depositions of both Weekly and Jones in the civil proceedings. The family’s brief contended, “Charles Jones’ criminal proceeding has absolutely nothing to do with how and why Defendant Weekly shot Aiyana. This Court should recall that it already ruled Charles Jones’ conduct was not relevant to the gross negligence claim in this case. . . This court should not allow the City to dictate the direction of this action through nothing less than executive fiat.”

Today, hundreds of campaigners and relatives gathered in Trafalgar Square to march against deaths in police custody, ending in a peaceful sit-in across the road from Downing Street. However, the police reacted violently, attacking two elderly women and detaining a number of protesters. Ceasefire associate editor Adam Elliott-Cooper reports.

The ‘March Against Deaths in Custody’ has been taking place for over a decade, along the same route, calling for the same demand: an end to police violence.
Although campaigners may differ in their political or ideological approach as to how this should be best achieved, all agree that peaceful protest is the first avenue that should be pursued and, indeed, all of those on today’s march remained committed to the principles of non-violence.
When the march reached Downing Street, moving testimonies from family members and relatives of Smiley Culture, Mark Duggan and Charles de Menezes left the crowd both moved and frustrated. Cries for ‘justice!’ over the beats of local African drummers added to an atmosphere of tension. As campaigners stood outside the gates of Downing Street, dozens of police encircled them, forming a line around the protest, moving in closer.

While the testimonies from the families were being read, one woman was told to “get inside.” Another young male, the nephew of a man killed in police custody, was pushed by an officer.
Every year at this march, a letter is written, signed and handed to the Prime Minister, highlighting the fact that no officer has ever stood trial for the murder of an innocent civilian, and demanding justice for the families, friends and communities affected by police violence.
Many of those who attended the initial march had started to leave, feeling the job had been done for another year and it was time to go home. This year, the thirteenth in the history of this demonstration, roughly half the attendees felt that their current methods were not effective.
Campaigners peacefully occupied the road outside the gates of Downing Street, led by the families of the deceased. Within moments, over 300 officers surrounded the protest, stepping on those sitting crossed legged on the ground.
Without warning, two elderly women, one of whom had delivered a speech earlier that afternoon about the killing of her grandson at the hands of police, were dragged by officers across the pavement. The women protested with shouts, but at no moment did any of them fight back.

Only the U.S. and Somalia sentence teenagers to life without parole. Adam Serwer tells the heartbreaking stories of kids who kill their abusers. Inside the heartbreaking stories of kids who kill the adults who abuse them.

At 16, Sarah Kruzan was sentenced to life without parole for killing her pimp, “G.G.” Despite the fact that G.G. had abused Sarah since the age of 13, when he put her on the street and made her work 12-hour shifts as a prostitute, the judge in her case decided the nature of the crime was so heinous that she was, essentially, irredeemable. A widely circulated YouTube video of Kruzan, now 29, discussing her crime suggests the opposite. “I definitely know I deserve punishment—I mean, you don’t just take somebody’s life and think that it’s OK,” Kruzan says. “So, yes, definitely, I deserve punishment.”

In 1992, 15-year-old Jacob Ind murdered his mother and stepfather while they lay in bed. His stepfather, Kermode, had sexually abused Jacob and his brother, Charles. Their mother offered no refuge—she would tell Jacob that she “hated him” and “wished he had never been born.” Years later, Ind told a local Colorado news station that he killed his parents because “I was too weak to directly confront them…My act was of pure selfishness. It was the coward’s way out.”

The examples of Sarah Kruzan and Jacob Ind, both of which involve brutal killings committed by abused and frightened children who are now remorseful adults, suggest that juveniles who commit heinous crimes are capable of being rehabilitated.

The practice of tossing juveniles in prison for life without the possibility of parole began during America’s great crime panic. Gripped by an irrational fear of what political scientist John DiIulio termed a generation of juvenile “super-predators,” in the mid-1990s legislators at the state and federal level acted to ensure these “super-predators” would be treated like the monsters the public believed they were. The result is a gruesome footnote to the story of America’s love affair with mass incarceration: an estimated 2,570 juveniles serving life without parole in a nation that already imprisons more of its population—1 percent, or nearly 2.5 million people—than any other country.

News stories about juveniles serving life without parole often focus on suburban white children, such as Ind or Brandon Hein, the subject of a 2003 investigation by Dan Rather. But the racial disparities already apparent in the criminal-justice system are replicated among juvenile lifers. According to a 2005 report from Human Rights Watch, black youth receive life without parole at a rate about 10 times greater than the rate of white youth.

On Monday the Supreme Court will consider whether juvenile life without parole violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment” in the context of two specific cases. Joe Sullivan was convicted, along with two accomplices, of robbing and raping a 72-year-old woman when Sullivan was 13 years old. Terrance Jamar Graham was convicted of armed burglary at the age of 17, and then sentenced to life without parole after he violated the terms of his probation.

The decision will ultimately hinge on two factors—the nation’s falling out of love with an excessively punitive criminal-justice system, and the same scientific research on which the court based its 2005 decision in Roper v. Simmons, in which the justices ruled it unconstitutional to execute juveniles. Back then, Justice Anthony Kennedy, still the Supreme Court’s all-important swing vote, was persuaded by research that showed teenage brains are less capable than adult brains of evaluating decisions and that adolescents’ “characters” are not “fully formed.”

That seems to be stating the obvious. The research in the Roper decision already undercuts the premise under which juvenile life without parole is justified—the presumption that convicted young people are simply monsters in training who cannot be rehabilitated, and that harsh sentencing will act as a deterrent. The examples of Kruzan and Ind, both of which involve brutal killings committed by abused and frightened children who are now remorseful adults, suggest an equally obvious conclusion: that juveniles who commit heinous crimes are capable of being rehabilitated.

But while most adult offenders were once youth offenders, most youth offenders, even those who commit serious crimes, do not become adult offenders. What’s more, Human Rights Watch estimates that more than a quarter of juveniles sentenced to life without parole are sentenced through the felony murder rule, in which a group of people committing a crime such as theft are all held responsible for the murder committed by one member of the group, even if the killing was not premeditated.

Despite the notion that judges are supposed to be impartial robots, the Supreme Court has always been sensitive to the tide of public opinion, and when it comes to excessive punishment, that tide is turning. Some states, including Alaska, Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington, D.C., forbid sentencing juveniles to life without parole. The father of “tough on crime,” James Q. Wilson, has recently written of mass incarceration, “No one can be happy with this state of affairs.” Internationally, the U.S. and Somalia keep each other company as the only two countries that have failed to sign the United Nations convention on the Rights of the Child, which explicitly forbids “life imprisonment without possibility of release” for “offenses committed by persons below 18 years of age.”

It’s time for the international moral embarrassment of juvenile life without parole to end.

On October 1, 2011 there was a march accross the Brooklyn Bridge to expose corporate greed on wall street. There were thousands of brave freedom fighters on the bridge who took a stand for Justice. Rev Omar Wilks was the first of 700 protesters to be arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge for the Great cause of OCCUPY WALL STREET.

"Not being here and watching from afar what took place here was really horrifying -- to see this, in this country. ... I think all of us want to send our best wishes, our prayers, our good karma, everything that we can muster to Scott so that he is better and well. ... Let's have 30 seconds of silence in honor of Scott Olsen and our hope that he will recover quickly from his injuries." -- Michael Moore at Occupy Oakland, Friday, October 28th, 2011

October 27, 2011
Only one week after promising Palestinian political prisoners that isolation would end and that all prisoners in isolation would be returned to the general population, in order to convince those prisoners to end their hunger strike, Israeli authorities have announced their intention to continue the isolation of Ahmad Sa'adat for at least one more year.
As reported by the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, an Israeli court in Bir Saba issued a ruling on October 27, 2011 to extend the isolation of Ahmad Sa'adat for an additional year. Ahmad Sa'adat has already been held in isolation for over two and one-half years. His release from isolation was a key demand of Palestinian prisoners' recent hunger strike - and was promised to them one week ago.
The ruling, which was based on secret evidence like all such rulings, dates back to August 8 but was not released until today; Ahmad Sa'adat was not accompanied by lawyers in the hearing.The prison administration had promised to end isolation following Palestinian prisoners' hunger strike. This decision is tantamount to torture - and a direct violation of the agreement with Palestinian prisoners to end their hunger strike, which had drawn the eyes of the world to their struggle.

20 Palestinian prisoners remain in isolation, despite the strike's suspension on October 17. Israel had promised that they would be released from isolation immediately following the release of 477 prisoners in a prisoner exchange agreement - however, Israel's prison administration has acted in complete violation of its word.
On October 18, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez called in the UN General Assembly for all use of isolation longer than 15 days to be banned, saying that isolation can cause "severe mental pain or suffering" and "can amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment when used as a punishment, during pre-trial detention, indefinitely or for a prolonged period...Segregation, isolation, separation, cellular, lockdown, supermax, the hole, secure housing unit... whatever the name, solitary confinement should be banned by states as a punishment or extortion technique."
The punishment, isolation and extortion of Ahmad Sa'adat for his ongoing courage and commitment as a leader of Palestinian prisoners and the Palestinian people must end. International action and solidarity is necessary!
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat reprints the following call received from activists in Palestine:A Call from Occupied Palestine to the Occupy Movement - From occupied Palestine, from our occupied lands, from our camps of refuge, from the prisons of torture and the prisoners of freedom, from our stolen lands, our chained borders, our demolished homes and our revolution, our commitment, our struggle for freedom:
For us, the word occupation has always stood for colonialism, land theft, genocide, dispossession, and death. It is a word and a concept we have fought to bring to an end for over sixty years. Yet the Occupy movement that has arisen in public squares, in cities and towns around the world, from the centre of imperialism in the US, Wall Street itself, is an occupation that can serve as a source of hope for liberation, for decolonization, for an end to the racist occupation of our homeland.
Seeing the youth of the West in the streets rejecting the brutal consequences of the system of imperialism and capitalism once more, we salute you, we stand with you, and we call: "Occupy Wall Street, Liberate Palestine!"
Our political prisoners stood steadfast through three weeks of hunger strike and have today been confronted by yet one more lie, another broken promise on the heap of lies and broken promises of the occupier - rather than our prisoners being freed from isolation, they are remaining in isolation. Ahmad Sa'adat, Palestinian national leader, having already spent two and a half years in solitary confinement, is slapped with yet one more year.We call upon you to make it clear that despite solitary confinement, Ahmad Sa'adat and the Palestinian prisoners are not isolated, and are part of a global movement and global solidarity. We call upon you to raise the voices, the pictures, and the stories of Palestinian political prisoners at Occupy Wall Street and all Occupy movement events. We, the Palestinian people are also the 99%, those victimized by war profiteers, by racism, by imperialism, by displacement and genocide. Our thousands of prisoners remain in the prisons of the illegal, illegitimate occupier.Raise their voices among yours, and stand together for the liberation of Wall Street, Palestine, and all of our oppressed and stolen land and people!

Take Action!

1. Picket, protest or call the Israeli embassy or consulate in your location and demand the immediate freedom of Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian political prisoners. Make it clear that you expect the demands of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike to be immediately implemented, including an immediate end to the isolation of Ahmad Sa'adat! Send us reports of your protests at Israeli embassies and consulates.
2. Bring the struggle of Palestinian prisoners to Occupy protests, as will happen in New York City on Friday, October 28 (Existence is Resistance Kuffeya Day) and has happened in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. Download and distribute theflyer, hold a rally or teach-in and express solidarity.

4. Write to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights organizations to exercise their responsibilities and act swiftly to demand that the prisoners' demands are implemented. Email the ICRC, whose humanitarian mission includes monitoring the conditions of prisoners, at JER_jerusalem@icrc.org, and inform them about the urgent situation of Ahmad Sa'adat. Make it clear that isolation is a human rights violation, a form of torture, and that Palestinian prisoners were coerced into stopping their hunger strike with false promises of the recognition of their rights, and that the ICRC must stand up and play its role to defend prisoners' rights.

5. Email the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat at info@freeahmadsaadat.org with announcements, reports and information about your local events, activities and flyer distributions.

August 7th-8th 1992 ( Joseph's own words) I was living on Garden Street in Natchez Mississippi (Adams County). The morning of August 7th I borrowed a car belonging to my cousin Charles Jones, and I went to my moms home on Johnson Street and picked up the check for the R.A. do. Once done, I went back home to Garden Street to get ready to go out to score some drugs. After driving around Natchez without much success, I along with Rachel made our way to Ferriday Louisiana. Rachel was my live in girlfriend (at the time). This was around 11am, when we made it to Ferriday, where I scored an ounce of crack cocaine. I then drove back to Garden Street, where I cooked, cut and bagged the drugs for sale later. While I was doing that Rachel went shop-lifting for cloths for that night, to go out on the town. Once the drugs were bagged, I sat on the stoop of my home and sold, until I had enough money to re-up again and so on. When Rachel made it back I bathed, dressed and we left for the night. I drove to Daisy Street (to the rocks) and scored an already cooked crack dope. Went inside the store bought alcohol. Then we picked up Sharon Grinell (who was walking). The three of us went to the 200 block of downtown Natchez, behind Mike's Place (barbershop). This was around 10pm. Once parked I sat and cut up the dope, I just bought, then stepped out. I sat on the hood of the car. People were already out there, loads of them. I met a few, we kicked it, got high socialising. As far as knowing them, the only people I knew were Rachel and Sharon, until around midnight when Clarence "bear" Anderson and Michael McMorris came behind Mike's Place. You had people coming and going all night, but I remained Mike's Place the whole night. I am not sure of the time, but my cousin Charles came to get his (car?) While I was back there. I offered him money for the use but he refused, saying it was 'ok'. Rachel and Sharon came and went all through the night. As day-break Rachel and I walked from the 200 block to her sister Carolyn's home, on Bishop Street. We talked to her sister as she was leaving home for work, then we went inside around 9am (August 8th). Rachel called one of her friends, then left to go shop-liftingfor the rest of the day, so we could have dope for later on that night. When she left I went to Garden Street and home, and crashed for a few hours.

My story of what happened that night, has never changed. Rachel has told three totally different stories of the events of that night. Rachel said I was with with here when she sold a gun, but witnesses said I was not. Rachel said I was with her when she bought dope with marked bills from the register, witnesses said I was not. Rachel said I put the cash register in the back of the truck, no witnesses saw this register, and still to this day has never been found. Rachel said I filled the truck with gas, went in gas station got drinks, and snack, went to register shot the woman four times carried register out with snacks and drinks...mind you, never dropping a thing, or leaving fingerprints while while high on crack cocaine. Rachel also wrote a letter to my mother, that stated I did not commit this crime, and was forced into saying I did. My attorney James Craig has this letter.

In July or August 1993 Is when I first met Larry Bernard, he first approached me and asked if I had a brother called Junebug, who got a kid by Natalie. I said sure, he showed me a picture and mentioned his son. That was the length of our talk. Next thing I hear about him, he got a statement from me saying I robbed and killed a store clerk.
I had been in jail a year at that time. I had been around people I had known all my life, and I never once told them I did this crime (YET) here I am (if it is to be believed) telling a total stranger I killed someone-- UNBELIEVABLE!

It was also around this time that they brought Clarence "bear" Anderson to jail, one of the two people who was with me the night this happened. I asked him if remembered that night, he said yes, so I sent him to my lawyer Donald Ogden to make a statement, and he was suppose to be at trial to testify, but never showed up. I assume he made a deal with the DA to get off whatever charge he was in jail on.

I have spent the last twenty years of my life at Parchman Prison, on Death Row for a crime I didn't commit. Please help me get justice....

They were hampered in their efforts by the simple fact that they had no evidence to connect him to the crime and his alibi was solid.

They had already arrested the actual culprit but thought it would be more impressive if they could get multiple convictions. They issued a warrant for Aaron and – knowing he had nothing to hide – he turned himself in at the police station.

Aaron was charged with Capital Murder for shooting and robbing a man and they held him from November of ’94 to August of ’95. When they could get no indictment from three terms of the Grand Jury he was finally released on a writ of Habeas Corpus.

The actual killer was never released and was convicted of Capital Murder but at his defense presented another man who was willing to testify that he shared a cell with Aaron and that Aaron talked of being involved in the crime.

Aaron says he never met the new witness and there is no record that they ever shared a cell or anything else.

With this new man in the game the killer, Willie Davis, was able to strike a deal with the D.A. to avoid the Death Penalty. (The D.A. really wanted Aaron!)

The deal was to the effect that Willie would now testify against Aaron to corroborate the story from the jailhouse snitch – who had been released from his 15 year drug sentence and shipped off to Florida. Willie agreed to being sentenced by the Judge to life without parole in exchange for his new testimony. He waived his right to appeal but avoided the Death Penalty by swearing to what they wanted to hear.

Thus it was that in April of 1996 Aaron was indicted for Capital Murder for the “Beating and Drowning” of a man he had previously been charged with shooting.

Aaron went back to the police and turned himself in again.

In spite of what the indictment said Willie Davis testified that Aaron “Shot and Beat” the victim.

Corey Pack, The Snitch, was doing 15 years for the sale of Cocaine but was released on probation and sent back to his home in Florida. He never shared a cell with Aaron but claimed he did and said what the D.A. needed him to say to get another notch on his conviction trophy.

Aaron’s witnesses were not called.

Aaron Finley was sentenced to “Life Without Possibility of Parole” and he is still there – still praying for Justice.

Kentucky Republican David Williams is running for governor, and the state senate president has the complete backing of Kentucky anti-abortion groups. And with this justification for why a rape victim should be forced to give birth to her attacker’s child, it’s no wonder.
Via Think Progress:

Williams said he opposes abortion even for cases of rape and incest, and he likens it to murder: “If somebody shot my mother, I would want to kill them, but I don’t think that is the appropriate thing to do. We have laws against murder.”

Of course, there are numerous reasons why this analogy doesn’t work, starting with the fact that in William’s scenario, his mother is the victim of the crime, where as in a rape, the woman deciding whether or not to carry the pregnancy is the victim. Should that woman not want to be pregnant, or have her rapist’s baby, she is in fact being victimized over and over again, unlike Williams’s mother.
The statement is a little ambiguous, so lets look at it from two different ways. Suppose Williams meant “shot” as in wounded, but not killed. Would Williams then deny his mother the chance to have the bullet removed, saying that she should simply live with it, ignore it, and maybe it will come out eventually? Or that some day she might be happy she has a bullet in her? Maybe that the bullet was innocent of the crime, and shouldn’t be held responsible for the actions of the shooter?
My argument is ridiculous, of course. But no more so than denying a rape victim the right to decide if she wants to terminate a pregnancy.
On the other hand, supposed Williams actually meant “what if someone shot and killed my mother?” Well, as for those “laws against murder,” that doesn’t seem to stop the state from enforcing the death penalty.
One of the crimes that can be punishable by death penalty? “Feticide,” the “murder” of an unborn child by any means other than intentional abortion by a legal health care provider. Kentucky passed a feticide bill in 2001 that made it a crime to kill an “unborn child,” first drafting a senate bill to address the issue, then a House bill passed as an “emergency” piece of legislation. According to HB 108:

(1) A person is guilty of fetal homicide in the first degree when:

(a) With intent to cause the death of an unborn child or with the intent necessary to commit an offense under KRS 507.020(1)(a), he causes the death of an unborn child; except that in any prosecution, a person shall not be guilty under this subsection if he acted under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable explanation or excuse, the reasonableness of which is to be determined from the viewpoint of a person in the defendant’s situation under the circumstances as the defendant believed them to be. However, nothing contained in this section shall constitute a defense to a prosecution for or preclude a conviction of fetal homicide in the second degree or any other crime; or

(b) Including but not limited to the operation of a motor vehicle under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life, he wantonly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to an unborn child and thereby causes the death of an unborn child.

(2) Fetal homicide in the first degree is a capital offense.

That emergency piece of legislation was then pushed quickly through the senate, under the guidance of Senate President David Williams.

Friday, 28 October 2011

http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/archives
Well… you go where the work is (especially if it’s the kind of work you love). It might mean we’ll see a lot less of her on the big screen in the immediate future… but, then again, it’s been awhile since we last saw Sophie Okonedo in that format; 2008, when she had 2 films in circulation - The Secret Life Of Bees and the lesser-known Skin.
Since then, you’ll recall that in June I posted an entry alerting you to her casting in 2 projects: an upcoming epic UK TV mini-series based on Sinbad lore; and an Australian TV mini-series titled The Slap. She’s also set to star in a stage production called Haunted Child, which will begin its run at the Royal Court theater in London on December 2.
That’s really it for her; some might call that a travesty, given the talent; alas, so it goes in this biz for so many other strong performers - specifically those belonging to marginalized groups.
But she certainly isn’t letting the lack of on-screen opportunity disparage her from taking advantage of others.
I lifted the below paragraph from an interview she did with the UK’s Telegraph, posted today, as she does the press circuit, as a marketing effort for The Slap, which begins airing on BBC Four tonight.

She enjoys stage work for what she calls the “minutiae” of the performance. “It’s something about doing the same thing every night. The repetition of the theatre means you’ve got the time to get deeply inside the person you’re playing.” She likens this to “how I find my garden fascinating when I probably didn’t at 20. It’s the little things now that just give me complete delight.”
Okonedo says she wants to focus on theatre for the immediate future. Her Hotel Rwanda Oscar nomination seems to have taken her away from the stage in the last few years, although, somewhat to her disappointment, to the small, rather than big, screen. She’s been Bafta-nominated (last year, which is when she was also awarded an OBE for services to drama) both for Mrs Mandela and for playing the ballsy lawyer Jack in the second series of BBC One’s Criminal Justice.
But it is in theatre, which is less wedded to realism than television and thus more colour blind, where she believes the best roles now lie for her. Theatre will offer her “Shakespeare, Ibsen, Chekhov”, whereas British film-makers are obsessed with making period pieces that rarely include black or mixed-race actors. Okonedo made a touching, and entirely plausible, Nancy in the BBC’s most recent version of Oliver Twist, but this is the exception rather than the rule.
“Most British movies are costume dramas,” Okonedo says. “All the older actors are having quite a lot of fun doing their Dickens. I think I’d be quite good at those characters. I’d like to do more grand dames as I get older, but I don’t think I’ll be offered them.”

So… nothing we haven’t heard from other black actors before, but still kind of sad when considered - this lack of variety and thus opportunity within what we could term the *establishment.* All the more reason to try and work outside it… easier said than done, I know.
But I certainly hope she continues to be offered work in theater. I can almost sense her disappointment in not having as much big screen success as she maybe hoped.
As an aside… interesting the idea that theater is less “wedded to realism” than cinema, and more risks seem to be taken in the former than the latter. I’ve actually never really given that much thought, but will. It’s maybe not the best example, but one that comes to me right away was that there was more uproar over Idris Elba being cast as Heimdall in the Thor movie than there has (thus far) been about an all-black Broadway stage production of A Streetcar Named Desire. I guess it’s all about the differences in the form and structure of both.
Anyway, good luck to Ms Okonedo regardless of what path she chooses, and I’m sure we’ll see her on screen again eventually… maybe sooner than we think.

Sheila Sylvester, whose son Roger dhttp://gu.com/p/33xk2/tw via @guardianied in custody. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian
This Saturday will see family, friends and many others marching against deaths in police custody in an annual event that is now entering its 13th year. The list of those who've died has grown ever longer, as does the gap between now and the last time a police officer was prosecuted for the death of somebody in custody – that record stretches back a shocking 42 years to 1969, when the two officers who were implicated in the death of David Oluywale, the first black man to die in police custody in the UK, were found guilty of assault and sentenced to a pitiful few months in prison.
Since this isolated case, there have been more than 1,000 more deaths in custody, and not one successful prosecution of a single police officer, despite a verdict of unlawful killing in several instances – a verdict handed down only after years, or even decades, of work, campaigning and painstaking legal challenges by the families of those killed (these struggles are well documented in Ken Fero's documentary Injustice). The past few months have seen a couple of high-profile deaths – Smiley Culture and Mark Duggan – as well as the increased use of Tasers. Three people (Dale Burns, Jacob Michael and Philip Hulmes) died after being shot with Tasers in an eight-day period in August this year. Tasers were also used more recently during the violent eviction of Dale Farm, directly contrary to police guidelines that state they should not be used in public order situations.
A report on deaths in custody put out by the IPCC, widely criticised for its lack of independence from the force, nevertheless revealed: "There was a breach of police procedure in 27% of cases and … people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds were more likely to be restrained whilst in police custody than whites." Despite the Metropolitan police being declared "institutionally racist" in 1999's Macpherson report, this doesn't appear to have stopped them from being actually racist in any respect.
Many people don't experience police brutality, of course, and it is all too easy to imagine that a death in custody must have had some mitigating circumstance, especially when the media is often complicit in putting out stories that work to damn the victim – so we heard that Mark Duggan was a "gangster", that he "shot first", just as Jean Charles de Menezes was wearing a "bulky jacket" and "jumped over the barriers"; none of these things are true but, when released in the first few hours of a story, they can significantly alter the perception of the victim, even if this misinformation is later corrected.
The procession on Saturday has huge significance for the families of, among many others, Roger Sylvester, Leon Patterson, Rocky Bennett, Alton Manning, Christopher Alder, Brian Douglas, Joy Gardner, Aseta Simms, Ricky Bishop, Paul Jemmott, Harry Stanley, Glenn Howard, Mikey Powell, Jason McPherson and Sean Rigg, but it also has significance for everyone concerned about the lack of police accountability and their growing use of force against the population. The United Friends and Family Campaign – which has organised Saturday's march – calls, among other things, for the investigation of deaths in police custody by a body that is "genuinely independent of the police", for automatic prosecution of officers following verdicts of unlawful killing and for CCTV to be placed in the back of all police vans – Lord knows, we have it everywhere else.
Samantha and Marcia, sisters of Sean Rigg, who died in Brixton police station, said: "It is now over three years since Sean died and still we are fighting to get crucial evidence from the IPCC. Why? This is our fourth attendance on the UFFC march and it beggars belief the number of deaths that have occurred since Sean died … We as families do not have justice; we just have us. It is therefore evident that families must unite to remember their loved ones and continue their quest for justice and change in the British judicial system. No justice. No peace."
Lack of police accountability and police violence during arrests, in police cars, in police custody and in prison cells, as well as at protests and occupations, is something that concerns us all. Let there be justice for those who have died in custody, and let no one else suffer the same fate: join the march on Saturday and let the families and friends of those who are suffering know that they are not alone.

So many times society wants to sugarcoat the important issues, to look the other way, to downplay what's really going on in the world. People are kept in the dark about what's going on so issues such as child abuse, domestic violence, rape, suicide, bullying, etc. get ignored. No one wants to talk about those things because they don't want to acknowledge that such horrible cruelty can be happening around us but yet sadly these things happen every single day behind closed doors and even in front of us. Some don't want to get involved or say anything simply because to them, it's so much easier to stay out of it and they believe it is not their place to interfere. Yet I say that when it comes to saving lives, when it comes to life and death situations, when it comes to innocent human beings getting hurt, it is our place to say something when we know about it. Otherwise those who say nothing at all while knowing what's going on are silent accomplices to the crimes. That is why it's important that we stand and fight together, that we break the silence that holds so many hostages and imprisons so many innocent souls, silencing their voices forever, that's why we must speak out and shed light on the truth, to break down those walls because the only way change will ever happen in the world is if we are willing to take action, to unite together, to step up and take charge, to say enough is enough and to do something about the things going on, the things that are important! Because unless we are willing to fight back, unless we are willing to challenge society and their rules, unless we're willing to do our part to protect the innocent, unless we are willing to do something, then we will never see change take place for change is when someone dares to take action against the evil going on in this world, when they refuse to keep quiet, and when they stand up for what's right against what's wrong even if it means standing alone because they are willing to fight for justice and to expose what goes on, to reveal the truth that others are too afraid to acknowledge and to let their voice be heard loud and clear since they have the courage and strength to confront the issues that society hides and refuse to play along with society's games. It's time to shatter those glass houses people live in and let our voices be heard. For unless those glass houses are shattered and those walls are torn down, fear will always win, blinding people to the truth about the important issues going on, about the suffering people endure and the violence that sweeps this country as well as the world. Everything is not all right when people are hurting, when innocent lives are lost, destroyed, and broken, when there's so much suffering going on and no one wants to do a thing about it. It's time for us to break that silence, to stand up and not be afraid, to not give a damn about what society says, and to challenge their lies with the truth. For we who have survived through things such as abuse know very well how silence becomes our enemy and never our friend and how silence is never the answer to solving any of this. We as survivors bear the scars inflicted upon us in our own personal battles and now it's our time to stand up, speak out, and know that our voices matter and that we can lead the way for others to follow by getting out there and sharing our own stories. We're not in this alone for we are all in this fight together.

Welcome To My World

About Me

DARCY D= YOU MUST BELIEVE.STANDING UP FOR THE INNOCENT C.E.O
The United Kingdom resident champions causes of the voiceless, the powerless and the weak, particularly in North America. She campaigns for petitions on behalf of incarcerated human trafficking.